Search

After a horrendous past two months (mysterious illness-like symptoms, numerous tests, doctor’s appointments, plus the government shutdown which assisted in preventing me from traveling to LA to receive my PEN Center USA Literary Award for Poetry, etc.), I am looking forward to next week, where I’ll be traveling to MA for a series of three Perugia Press-related readings to celebrate my book, The Wishing Tomb, and Gail Martin’s Begin Empty Handed, which was awarded this year’s Perugia Press Award. If you’re near any of the places on the itinerary below, I hope you’ll come out and join us:

While in MA, I also am hoping to have a little excursion time to see Emily Dickinson’s house, the Plath archives at Smith College, and to have dinner with my sweet cousin, Hope, who lives in Boston. I can’t wait!

*
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll mention it again: I am a list maker. Call me OCD and you wouldn’t be far from the truth. I love lists. This type of list (below), however, is one of my favorites. It’s my reading list. I thought I would share my fall reading list with you:

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay (recommended by my mother, who is perhaps the most widely read person I’ve ever known, except for maybe my dad, who actually reads the encyclopedias).

Dallas 1963 by Bill Minutaglio (anyone who has known me long enough knows that I have a Kennedy-history obsession that is not limited to the assassination history. This Nov. marks 50 years since the assassination of JFK, and this new book has been released just in time).

Poetry

Ain’t No Grave by TJ Jarrett (this is probably one of my favorite books of poetry to come out this year, and I’m in the process of reviewing it for a journal).

Dancing in Odessa by Ilya Kaminsky (I first read this book as an undergrad, so it’s been about eight years since I poured over its perfection. I love this book, as does almost everyone who has read it. I read it in tiny slivers and ruminate. It’s best digested that way so the foreign story will unfold carefully, and not all at once).

*
I was invited to record a podcast for Arizona State University’s wonderful literary journal, Superstition Review. My podcast consists of me reading a handful of poems that have been published in SR, included a few from my second book, The Wishing Tomb. You can listen and read more, here.